SVA PoD Design Research 2013

Fast food today is taking a toll on the health of people in Western society.  As people get hooked into the fast food culture, they give large fast food corporations power to keep producing junk food.  With continued demand for fast food, these corporations are kept alive, feeding people fatty, sugary, and low quality food.  In the long run, fast food is holding America back.  As Americans continue to gorge themselves on these unhealthy foods, the negative effects associated with it will only get clearer.  In 10 years, America will be a much healthier country.

The biggest influence towards a healthier lifestyle is culture.  With such big corporations and regulations, improvements will move very slowly.  However, people’s demands will stimulate a change.  The cultural preferences for staying fit and eating healthy will become dominant in the coming years.  The juicing fad, exercise classes, farmers markets, and kale worshipping are recent developments amongst upper class Americans.  They value the positive effects a carrot will have in comparison to a slice of cake.  Overall, the awareness of the food we are consuming has skyrocketed amongst educated people of all economic groups in this country.  This awareness will slowly but steadily become a social trend, where people will face the consequence of social stigma if they do not follow the trend.  Soon enough, people will make healthy choices without even thinking about it.  Our education for children and adults alike will engrain these healthy values into our lifestyles.  Children will be raised by the standards of these ideals, and buying vegetables through farms will become a part of their lives.  In ten years, we will know where our bananas and spinach come from.

With a new cultural ideal, technology will take less of a role in food production in order to move society to healthier food.  Right now, technology is being used to mass-produce unhealthy food options.  In fact, fast food is responsible for reshaping agriculture.  With the heavy demand for particular foods, agricultural processes have been formed around fast food ideals.  Ten years down the road, we still have technological capabilities, but they are not being used to mass-produce food.  Instead, technology is being used in a different way.  It is a tool for empowering lower class citizens to get healthier foods.  Today, healthy food is so expensive that people with low incomes cannot afford to buy it.  However, with a cultural shift towards healthier food trends, the demands will shift from junk food to healthy food and as a result, the industry will provide healthy foods at lower costs.  In addition, technology will help lower income people communicate their needs and barriers.  They will have the capability to speak out through social media, forums, blogs, and other outlets that speak out to the public.  Once they are heard, industries will readjust their food production processes and prices. 

Not only will the industry respond to consumer wants, but also will be responsible for transforming the behavior of consumers.  It is a cyclical process where the consumers influence the industry while the industry also influences the consumer.  The main change will be making healthy food more affordable.  Industries that previously focused on mass-producing wheat and grain that are used in fast foods will switch their focus to producing enough fruits and vegetables for our population.  As a result, it will become more difficult to obtain junk food for a lower price.  Those who would prefer junk food to healthy food will struggle to maintain their unhealthy habits with the shifts in price.  Fruits and vegetables will become the cheapest options, which means that lower income people will inevitably begin eating apples over a bag of chips.  This change in the industry will also raise awareness about the importance of eating healthy.  People will question why there are changes in the availability of certain foods as well as prices.

The Dematerialization of the Midlife Crisis in 2023

What has become popularly known as the “Midlife Crisis” often revolves around an individual’s sense of “meaning” upon recognizing their own mortality within the context of reaching an anticipated “halfway point” in their life.  We anticipate a tidal shift in perspective and manifestation of the crisis 10 years from now as the dominant generation experiencing midlife shifts from the Baby Boomers (born between 1944 and 1960) to Generation X (born between 1962 and 1980).

Throughout the past two decades a Baby Boomer’s standard reaction to midlife frequently involved an intensified quest for objective materialist identifications such as fancy sports cars, plastic surgery, younger and various sexual partners, etc.  Conversely, the worldview of aging Gen Xers has been informed by their being raised as the “latchkey kid” offspring of their divorced and dual-income working Boomer parents, as both phenomenon gained widespread frequency during the 70s and 80s.  This has resulted in a less material and more experience focused culture informing the lives of aging Gen-Xers and their shifting worldview has been accelerated by a variety of developments, largely technology-fueled, in both industry and culture.

Although our latest generation, known as the Millenials, represents the first generation born directly into the maw of technology, the Gen-Xers have been forced to adapt to a rapidly changing and accelerating technological landscape and as a result are generally nimble, more adaptable, self-sufficient, and prone to reinvention than previous generations.  As a result, this coming generation’s experience of midlife crisis may in fact prove to be less tumultuous although possibly more widespread and in fact Gen-Xers may find that they’re experiencing several smaller crises throughout their middle years.

The largest single factor informing the midlife crisis in 2023 appears to be the dematerialization of experience and the emergence of a shared ownership society.  The compression of time and space brought about by advances in communications technology and the ubiquity of wideband internet access will facilitate the emergence of a barter economy in which ownership is largely eschewed in favor of rental and sharing.  Under these auspices, wherein a high end sports car or luxury accommodations are readily available albeit only temporarily, these trappings of luxury will not carry the same perceived value as they have for past generations and as such will factor far less into the pursuit of meaning generally associated with the Midlife Crisis.

As a result the Gen-Xer entering midlife in 2023 will be far more focused upon experience than materiality and this phenomenon will be greatly supported by other advances in technology providing for Virtual Experiences that may substitute for many of the traditional pursuits of the Gen-Xer’s crisis-experiencing Boomer parents.  For example virtual worlds such as today’s Second-Life role playing game will evolve to such a high degree of realism and engagement that experiences within these environments will serve as a direct substitute for the real thing.  Informed by their experience as the products of divorce we will find more and more Gen-Xers sticking together throughout the changing landscape of midlife and seeking meaning together with their life companions through shared virtual experiences online or through virtual “swapping” services that enable users to experience sex with other partners, lifestyles otherwise unavailable to them, and travel to places unattainable due to time, budget, or physical constraints.  Gen-Xers as a result will largely experience midlife together and with the societal stigmas generally attached to these activities removed by bringing them out into the open and dematerializing them into the virtual realm midlife will become a bonding rather than a divisive phenomenon for many couples.

We are shifting from an ownership culture to an experience culture.

Future Future Concept - 3D Skype Based Therapy Group

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